


Act Casual

by robocryptid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Hiding in Plain Sight, Kissing to Hide from the Bad Guys, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 17:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15690171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robocryptid/pseuds/robocryptid
Summary: On a mission in Numbani, Genji and Lucio must find some way to hide in plain sight. Whatever will they do?!





	Act Casual

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coinin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coinin/gifts).



> Written for the 76 Kisses Prompt Meme I'm doing over on Tumblr. For [coinin](https://coinin.tumblr.com), who wrote:
> 
> _Gosh this was so hard to decide, but how about 17: Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys, for Gencio? I don’t think I’ve seen anything for them using this trope. :)_
> 
> Updated April 1, 2019: now this has a short comic by the fantastic [bloomingcnidarians](https://twitter.com/bloomingjellies)! Viewable on Tumblr [here](http://bloomingcnidarians.tumblr.com/post/183618505983/inspired-by-robo-cryptids-excellent-fic-act) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/bloomingjellies/status/1108843432024301568).

They couldn’t take Lúcio or Hana anywhere.

Missions in isolated and evacuated areas were fine of course, but go anywhere too busy, with too many civilians and too big a crowd, and all hell could break loose.

Sometimes the fame worked in their favor. Nobody expected Lúcio’s visit to Numbani to cover a few Overwatch agents poking around. Genji should have been on the infiltration mission, but someone from the team needed to stay close to Lúcio.

Winston hadn’t been entirely insensitive about asking him to do it. Genji had  _agreed_  to it. Between their wanted vigilantes, known “former” Overwatch agents, and faces ranging from  _world famous_ to  _well-known in certain circles_ , Genji would, strangely enough, be the least conspicuous among Lúcio’s entourage, particularly in Numbani, where passing as fully omnic meant he fit right in and sent the right kind of political message.

So he did his job. He stuck close and watched the crowd. He watched Lúcio’s other crew and bodyguards too, because the vigilance came born and bred, bone-deep at this point no matter how friendly or well-vetted they seemed. They watched him right back. The humans among them seemed unfazed by an alleged omnic — given Lúcio’s politics and their own coworkers, this should not have come as such a surprise — and the two omnic guards eyed him curiously, as if they sensed that he didn’t quite fit.

The concert went well enough. No signs of Talon or anyone else more nefarious than the fans who tried to get too close. The wildly dressed crowd — human and omnic alike — who had turned out for the show meant Genji blended surprisingly well, for once barely stood out even in public. Between that and the music and Lúcio’s infectious enthusiasm for it all, it was pleasantly uneventful. Maybe even enjoyable.

Lúcio in his element was unlike any other person Genji had seen, intense and joyful and exciting, with none of the reckless, vicious undercurrent that Genji had felt back when this sort of scene was his second home. It was familiar and unfamiliar all at once, set something thrumming inside him, down to the bone, deeper than even the booming bass could reach. It made his cheeks burn, and he was grateful for the faceplate for yet another reason.

It was no wonder Lúcio had so easily hurtled to stardom, if even half the people here felt even half what Genji did.

 

* * *

 

“You know you could’ve waited outside if you wanted, like, nobody’s gonna ambush me here.” Lúcio mercifully put a shirt on, and Genji only sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was just the two of them now, the rest of Lúcio’s bodyguards at another hotel. Their job now was to make it look like Lúcio was staying thereinstead of at the one Overwatch had secured. “What? You think Talon has their own cyborg assassins by now?” Lúcio pulled his hair up and back, smirking at him. “You think I couldn’t take one if they did?”

Genji was well aware he was being teased, but his mood since the show was  _off_ , for lack of better words. He was sure he would find the better words later, safely back at the base with Zenyatta and certainly notin a hotel room alone with Lúcio, who seemed to have no shame whatsoever about changing his clothes in front of— Well. Genji might already have some idea of what the words for his mood were. He felt a bit like an idiot at the moment, but he wasn’t that much of one. “I’m sure you could take an assassin. Maybe two. It would be nice not to have to find out.”

Lúcio laughed at that and shrugged it off. If he noticed Genji’s mood, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead he said, “I’m starving.”

“I could go get us something.” It would be the most discreet, but it would mean leaving Lúcio alone to fend for himself if someone didcome along.

Lúcio seemed to notice the hole in his thinking as quickly as Genji did, because he laughed a little. “How are you gonna watch my back  _and_ leave me here to get food?”

“We could order room service,” he said more cautiously, although that too had its drawbacks.

Lúcio sighed and looked right at him, arms crossed over his chest. “Listen, I know you don’t like… being around all those people.” He said it slowly, as if he actually understood, but he picked up steam after that. “But I gotta admit, after a show I can’t just sit around a hotel room. I  _wanna_ go dance all night, have some drinks, meet a bunch of strangers and get into something stupid. But I’ll settle for some food and walking around a little.” Lúcio’s face softened a little, as if Genji was the one either of them had to worry about, and that, of course, was enough to persuade him.

 

* * *

 

Genji had not fully believed that they could simply walk around in public, but Numbani nightlife was full of the same mix of flashily dressed omnics and humans, most of whom had any number of aesthetic enhancements, and nobody blinked twice at Genji. Mixed among the bars and clubs were little shops and food stands, each block bustling with activity, designed for tourists and party-going locals and anyone else out at night.

The crowd made him anxious at first, until he realized that this many people meant nobody was looking at them in particular, and he relaxed more than he had in a long time. Even Lúcio, whose face was plastered on posters over half the city, went largely unnoticed. He’d insisted Numbani was a big enough city they could get away with it, the locals too used to celebrities of all nature to get too worked up, and the tourists too busy sightseeing to pay attention to individuals.

Lúcio was more than pleasant company, happy enough to pick up threads of conversation without demanding too much of the same. It wasn’t a date, but Genji could easily imagine what one might be like with him. It made the thought of returning to the hotel room an increasingly perilous one, but that was far off. He had lived through worse, and he could enjoy the present.

Lúcio made it most of the way through his food before a fan finally built up the nerve to approach him. Entirely unsurprisingly, he was gracious and delighted to sign an autograph and pose for a picture, and that seemed to open the floodgates for more and more people to  _notice_ them, and Genji was suddenly back to bodyguard duty. Presumably he didn’t cut quite the same intimidating figure when he was also holding a paper tray of fried yams and — by polite request — an omnic’s purse, because they talked to  _him_ too, asked too many questions and even, to his unending surprise, occasionally flirted.

“Are you two an item?” one of them asked.

“No,” he answered flatly, then returned a woman’s jacket to her.

“So you’re just the muscle.”

“Yes,” he answered more slowly, turning to look at them more fully. It was a man, eyeing him with the sort of interest Genji found strangely predatory, too curious by far to be any simple fan.

“And you two are just here... hanging out?” the man asked, and something about it made alarm bells go off, the vivid adrenaline kick that said this man was unsafe. 

Genji said nothing else, only pushed his way closer to Lúcio and announced the autograph session was finished. There were some protests, of course, but most were polite enough about it, seemed to realize they had taken up enough of Lúcio’s time. Lúcio followed along with it, seeming to trust Genji’s instinct that they should leave, even if he jerked his arm free from Genji’s grip as soon as they were out of sight of most of the fans.

Genji knew the man was following them. His senses told him there may have been more. It didn’t seem safe to return to either hotel room with someone on their trail, so he pulled Lúcio along, got them lost in the crowd the best he could, and let him know only once they were moving that they had Talon — or someone — after them.

They wove in and out, ditched the yams and dropped cash at a tourist shop for some tacky clothing to cover them both and kept moving, took shortcuts through back alleys and popped back into the crowd. Lúcio at least was well covered, in an oversized sweatshirt with the hood yanked up.

“They’re gonna be looking for you too,” Lúcio said. “Or for an ‘omnic’, anyway.”

Genji paused briefly on the sidewalk, people bumping him as they milled by. Then he nodded and swallowed. Lúcio followed him into another side alley, and Genji detached the faceplate, pulled the whole helmet off in pieces. He shook out his short hair, free as it was to the open air now, instead of plastered to his head under the helmet. Lúcio’s face was inscrutable in the darkness, backlit by too much neon to reveal any distress he might have felt at seeing Genji’s scars.

Genji had nowhere to put the helmet, but Lúcio took it carefully from his hands. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” he said quietly, and Genji strangely trusted him to do so. Lúcio stuffed the pieces into the front pocket of the hoodie; it bulged out, but it wasn’t as obvious as Genji had expected, hidden as it was in the lumps of the oversized sweatshirt.

He had never tried hiding out in the open like this, and though the shirt and jacket and pants he’d found covered his weapons, hindered him in a way he didn’t like, it was strangely freeing. Outside the alley, it was far too busy, with too many neon lights and too many people and too many sights to see for anyone to bother looking too long at a man with too many scars. Lúcio looked, but even that was less off-putting than it might have been. Genji chalked it up to curiosity, to the realization that only one of his teammates, someone who spent real time with him, would know how odd it was.

Eventually it seemed safe enough to slow down, and a surreptitious scan of their surroundings didn’t show anyone with a particular interest in them. “Any idea who it was?” Lúcio asked.

“No. They were too interested though.” Genji ducked his head a little, second-guessing the instincts that had made him so certain before.

“Hey, it’s fine. I trust you.” Lúcio smiled a little at that and wouldn’t quite meet his eye. It didn’t feel like a lie — Lúcio was too sincere for that — but Genji wasn’t sure what it was. “Better safe than sorry anyway,” he said as they dipped into another alley.

“Especially with you running around unarmed.”

“I am  _not_ unarmed.” Lúcio said it with a roll of his eyes so pronounced it was obvious even in the darkness. “I’ve got some tech with me. And I was fighting waybefore I picked up the medic gig.” He sounded as if he were actually a little offended, as if Genji had done something wrong. It was nearly as distressing as Talon — maybe Talon — following them. “You’re only  _playing_  bodyguard. We’re supposed to be partners here.”

The censure was mild, hardly anything at all, but Genji still felt his cheeks go hot, and he was grateful for the darkness. “I— no, you’re right.”

“It’s fine, man, just. Take it easy. Trust me a little.” 

“I  _do_ ,” Genji said, surprising himself with his own vehemence. It made Lúcio stop for a moment, before he began walking again. “I’m sorry.”

Lúcio laughed a little, brushed it all off as if it had never happened. Again, it felt entirely sincere. “It’s not a big deal. I’m kinda used to it. You’re _not_ the only person who does it, but sometimes it’s a little much, you know?” Genji only nodded, and Lúcio sighed and laughed again. “We’re good, seriously. It’s even kinda cute when you do it, like a whole ‘overprotective’ thing.”

Lúcio’s face was lit up by glaring pink neon as they neared the edge of the alley, and he was grinning at Genji again. Maybe even flirting, Genji realized, and he thought his entire face must be red. 

Then Genji saw him, the man who had started it all, and he quickly pulled up short. He shot an arm out to stop Lúcio too. The man wasn’t looking their way yet, just eyeing the crowd as a whole. The edge of the alley put them between two nightclub crowds, throngs of people passing by or waiting to get in. Lúcio spoke from somewhere near Genji’s shoulder. “Is that him at two o’clock?”

“Yes,” Genji said, trying not to stare too hard at him.

Lúcio laughed again, moved a little behind Genji. “So we should act casual?”

“Yes,” Genji said again. The man wouldn’t recognize him, not with the change of clothes and the face mask off, but he wasn’t sure how to get Lúcio past him without risking recognition.

“Turn around.” Genji did, halfway, and Lúcio reached out and dragged him the rest of the way around. He opened his mouth to protest, but Lúcio cut him off. “He isn’t looking this way, and he’s not gonna recognize you. We just need him to keep  _not_ looking too close until he leaves, right?”

“I— right?” Genji answered, more than a little flustered.

“You really trust me?” Lúcio asked.

“Yes,” Genji said a third time, faster than before, and Lúcio laughed again, pulled Genji closer by his new, ugly jacket and backed himself against the grimy alley wall. 

Genji didn’t have any time to think or react before Lúcio snaked a hand behind his neck, pulled him in close and kissed him. It was awkward, and messy, and Genji’s eyes squeezed shut and his lips pressed too tight, and even though he could follow the logic of  _keep him not-looking_ it still felt blindingly stupid. Lúcio must have been drunk, or trying to torment him, or Genji had severely overestimated how much he should trust him, because this plan was absolutely, utterly absurd.

He gasped reflexively, started to pull back, and Lúcio followed, kissed him again, and this time wasn’t awkward at all. Lúcio fit their lips together like they belongedthat way, sent something sweet and achy singing through his veins, and Genji thought he might be lost.

This plan  _was_ absurd, but his instincts screamed at him to commit to it, and a strange giddiness bubbled in his chest, the kind of excitement he’d chased for years in his youth. Genji surged into it, parted his lips and felt Lúcio’s open with them. He pushed and leaned his weight into Lúcio, into the wall, frustrated and flustered by the helmet trapped between them, still in the front pocket of the hoodie.

Lúcio’s hand curled into his hair, a sensation Genji hadn’t felt in years, and all Genji wanted was to get closer. He was hindered by the clothing, by the lump of the helmet, by the very public nature of it, but he still shoved a thigh between Lúcio’s, still kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, until he lost track of time entirely, until Lúcio finally broke it and pulled away panting.

“I don’t see him any more,” Lúcio said after a moment, looking out at the crowd and very conspicuously  _not_ back at Genji.

Genji drew away, carefully let him go and pried himself away, his entire body feeling too hot, as if he should be shaking with it. He was instead surprisingly steady, even now. “I don’t either.”

“So that– That was a thing we did. That worked,” Lúcio said.

“Right.”

Lúcio drew a long breath, far too loud, like Genji was suddenly attuned to it all. He could picture it now: the long walk back, trying to sleep in the hotel room, stiff and awkward for both of them. Neither of them had moved yet though.

Lúcio broke the silence first. “So you, uh, really got into that.” Genji flushed, and Lúcio looked startled. “I mean, me too?” he said quickly, and he grabbed for Genji’s jacket. “I  _mean_ , I wouldn’t mind. If you wanted. We could maybe try again. Sometime. A better time. With fewer people.” Genji laughed, the sudden rush of relief revealing to him exactly how tense he had been before that. “Maybe without the bad guys too?” Lúcio was grinning then, as if he had noticed Genji suddenly relaxing.

“Yeah, I could do that,” Genji said, then he smiled, unable to stop himself in the face of Lúcio’s own. “I might even know a place. Very quiet, very private. Maybe even already paid for.” Lúcio laughed, and despite all the fumbling, he wasn’t remotely shy about sliding Genji’s hand into his on the way back to the hotel.

**Author's Note:**

> Updated April 1, 2019: now this has a short comic by the fantastic [bloomingcnidarians](https://twitter.com/bloomingjellies)! Viewable on Tumblr [here](http://bloomingcnidarians.tumblr.com/post/183618505983/inspired-by-robo-cryptids-excellent-fic-act) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/bloomingjellies/status/1108843432024301568).


End file.
